Bible Verse of the Day Wednesday February 10th 2021

Matthew 6:1 Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

Any righteousness we might have comes from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; it is to be in coherence with what God wants for our lives and not what we might want to be doing. Consequently, our righteousness would be good works that we do so that the honor and glory go to God. This verse is a cautionary notice from Christ Jesus about doing good for the wrong reasons. If we choose to do God's will for our lives to gain human approval, there will be no reward from God; the human reward is all that we can expect. Followers and believers in Christ should do good works in the presence of other people but should not do them to have the attention or spotlight fall on us. We can do right and good works and do them for the wrong reasons. Our good works are not sufficient in and of themselves; they must occur righteously, with the right motive. The good deeds or good works are not critical; the motive behind why we do these good works is most important in God's eyes. 

Good and kind words from our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus is a good thing when we give the glory to God. However, sometimes praise from humans can be dangerous when we do these righteous deeds for God because it will tempt us to put on a deceptive and insincere frontage. This self-appeasement is called hypocrisy, and it will lead to putting more emphasis on our status among humans than doing our good works all for the honor and glory of God. The aspiration for personal publicity is flourishing, to the point of becoming an epidemic, in the evangelical world of today. This conceit is calling attention to self, at the expense and deprivation of the glory of God. 

Too many Christians are taken in by this subtle pretense and smokescreen of Satan, mistakenly believing that they are on top of the world. They are falling for this trap of Satan because they have large numbers of people coming to their church, supposable accomplishment among other evangelical ministers of the gospel, and personal recognition by a massive number of people. The real story, the truth of the matter is that they are on the bottom rung of the ladder, from God's perspective. When someone seeks applause and acknowledgment for themselves instead of for God's glory, it is vile and despicable in our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus's eyes. Looking and seeking personal recognition for something that should be God's honor and glory is belittling the work of Christ Jesus on the Cross of Calvary (1 Corinthians 10:31). 

When we strive to glorify God, we display and exhibit that we do not perform our good and righteous works for our notability and admiration but God's honor and veneration. The primary concern of all followers and believers in Christ Jesus should not be the affirmation and contention of our rights, but for God's Honor and glory. 

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